Tiki News & Lifestyle

WIPP: Three Items Revealed

Three of the items in the What In Polynesian Pop game have been correctly guessed by Tangaroa and Helz, leaving six more items to be discovered. Those three items, and the stories behind them, are revealed today:

Beachbum Berry’s Grog LogItem 3

Item 3 was correctly guessed by Tangaroa to be the cover of the Grog Log, by Beachbum Berry. I’ve mentioned the Grog Log a few times here on Critiki News, but it’s always worth another mention — if you don’t have this book, go get it! I bought mine a few years back, and this past summer, the Bum signed mine:

To Humuhumu, Grand Mistress of the Mai Tai, mahalo for the pleasure of your company… and your mixing! Jeff Berry

Trader Vic’s Port Light Ceramic MugItem 2

Item 2 was correctly guessed by Helz to be a Trader Vic’s Port Light mug. He actually used the word “glass,” and while this is actually the ceramic mug and not the original glass version of the Port Light, some people use “glass” as a generic term for both glasses and mugs, so I’m counting it as a correct guess. I purchased this from the Trader Vic’s in San Francisco a few months ago; they had a whole cache of them, never used and still stored in their original packaging, complete with the Imperial sticker on the bottom. They must have been sitting in the Trader Vic’s warehouse for some time. The Port Light and its sister drink, the Starboard Light (served in a green mug, naturally) are both creamy, egg-based drinks — the Port Light uses scotch, while the Starboard Light (my preference) is made with bourbon. These drinks are still served at Trader Vic’s today, but it’s more common to see a version of this mug with black paint instead of gold.

Bamboo HandbagItem 9

Helz had another correct guess with Item 9, one of the feet on my beloved Bamboo Handbag. Bamboo Handbag (along with the small chimp playing a ukulele she wears on her handle) has been my constant companion for nearly three years now, and she’s got the scuff marks to prove it. Bamboo Handbag arouses commentary everywhere we go — the first thing people say (after saying “cool purse!”) is “where did you get it?” I spotted Bamboo Handbag in the window of a picture framing shop in Seattle, as part of a seasonal display. I’m not totally clear on her provenance beyond that, but my friend Kevin Kidney thinks he knows:

Oh poor bag. Your hard outer shell just hides the emptiness inside. I imagine that once upon a time ago you were a thirty foot tall pillar of bamboo, swaying within a green forest of your kin next to an ancient pagoda. Once a little girl named Gong Lee carved her name at your base. Then you were chewed down by a panda and fell into the Yangtze, only to be carried off to sea. Long after that you were picked up by a bearded man named Bo Tsai and you became a fishing pole on a sampan. Bo Tsai didn’t catch a single fish, and so he sold you to a sweatshop where you were fashioned into 15 identical little hand bags, each one slightly smaller than the one before. You are #7 hand bag (#1 being so tiny that it was given to a mouse to carry one piece of rice in.) You only have one friend, your third owner: a skinny girl who spills drinks on you and claims that you actually like it. I guess you don’t count the little carved monkey as a friend. He’d cut loose from you, if he could. Wooden monkeys aren’t loyal, as you’ve no doubt discovered. And besides, he was once a tree in Palmdale; but that’s another story.

Men seem just as interested in her as women are, I think it’s because she has an “if that was my next wood shop project, I wouldn’t catch flak from the wife for being in the garage all day” sort of look to her. She’s been in more tiki bars than most people I know (and that’s saying something, in the crowd I run in), and she once had her own page on MySpace (maybe it’s time to give her another one). Bamboo Handbag, I love you so!

Some of the guesses for the other items are very close… keep the guesses coming!

loved the bamboo handbag when I spied it sitting proudly on the bar at smugglers cove last Saturday night. Loved meeting and talking with you about tiki for the short time that we did even more…Michael from the O . C.